Known as South America's most up and coming city, including an overhead metro system, Medellin is pretty impressive, with perfect 'springtime' weather year round to top it off. However, as in many big cities, Medellin comes with more than it's fair share of homelesness and violence, and we paid a visit to Pablo Escobar's house. A famous Colombian drug lord who was shot in his hideout in 1993 during the time when Medellin was one of the most dangerous cities in the world!

The Wandering Paisa was a great hostel. We visited the Zona Rosa where most of the other hostels are locted, in a nice district full of bamboo, boutique shops and restaurants. A night out to remember not too far from there was at Dulce Jesus Mio (My Sweet Jesus), a theatrical, bizarre, neon light discotheque. All the staff were dressed up in different outfits, with live music, dancing and sparkelers when midnights strikes (after a countdown of course) with all the locals getting right into it, jumping up on stage. We also had endless supplies of popcorn and other nibbles on our table and soup appeared at one stage of the night...and if you do make it to Dulce Jesus Mio, a visit to the bathroom is a must - to check out the crazy sculptured sinks and toilets, we'll leave it at that!

The city centre has a few nice plazas, such as Plaza Berrio and the nearby plaza full of entertaining sculptures by the famous Colombian artist Fernando Botero. Plaza Cisneros (Plaza of Lights) is another that is full of three hundred giant poles that light up during the night. There were also other festive and impressive Christmas lights dotted throughout the city.

The metro made it super easy to travel, and included in the price of one ticket is a ride on a cable car halfway up the valleyside, travelling over some of the poorer neighbourhoods and slum areas, (who the cable car has been supplied for to make transport easier) with a view down over Medellin up the top. We've never visited a city before which uses cable cars on their public transport route, and on the weekend it was nice to see lots of local families and children enjoying the ride.